


Soothe

by blythechild



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Angst and Porn, Angst with a Happy Ending, Angsty Schmoop, Comfort/Angst, Developing Relationship, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Friendship/Love, Male-Female Friendship, Porn With Plot, Porn with Feelings, Revelations, Romantic Friendship, Romantic Gestures, Sleepiness, Sleeping Together, Sleepy Cuddles, Workplace Relationship, Workplace Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-30
Updated: 2015-08-30
Packaged: 2018-04-18 04:53:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4692791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blythechild/pseuds/blythechild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prentiss and Reid are about to do a difficult assignment and are both way too keyed up about it.</p><p> </p><p>This is a work of fanfiction and as such I do not claim ownership over the characters herein. It was created as a personal amusement. This story contains mature themes and sexual content and should not be read by those under the age of 18.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by another prompt from dionne_2k: _someone straddling the other while they’re trying to read and slowly getting them to put the book away._ I was aiming for something sweet but it came out long and smutty and angsty instead. Ya, go me  >:/ It also really is what the tags say it is: PWP. There's no grander purpose here.

Prentiss quickly packed up her things from her desk when she realized that the bullpen had gone dark and silent around her. There wasn’t much to take - she already knew the case file inside and out as well as the tactical plan for tomorrow’s assault on the compound provided by the Bureau’s task force leader. If she stayed she’d just spent hours trying to figure out what they were missing - to find a better way to address the situation. But she knew she’d come up empty. There was nothing left to do now but go home and grab a few hours sleep to prepare herself for what she imagined was going to be one of the shittier days in her career. She didn’t need much in the way of case files and paperwork to lie awake and get ready for _that_.

She turned off her desk lamp and was halfway to the elevators when she saw a sliver of light from under the conference room door. Climbing the steps out of the office area she wondered if Hotch was trying to find a way to overrule the task force leader’s plan. Her boss didn’t flex his ego too often but she imagined that the way the tactical guys ignored the combined hostage negotiation experience of both Hotch and Rossi probably set the man’s teeth on edge. But when she pushed the door open though, it wasn’t what she expected.

“Hey. You’re still here.”

Reid sat on the couch along the far wall of the room surrounded by papers and maps of rural Virginia. He’d discarded his tie, rolled up his sleeves, and his hair looked like he’d been wringing his fingers through it. His eyes flicked to hers distractedly, as if she were one of the many pages he was trying to synthesize, and then went back to his task. He rubbed his chin and the five o’clock shadow forming along it as he reached for a large map and began drawing intricate geometric shapes on it in marker. His only acknowledgment of her was a low grunt that he reserved for times when he was so involved in whatever he was doing that he couldn’t spare the energy to tackle language simultaneously. That noise always did something to her: the Neanderthal inarticulateness in service of his tremendous intellect sort of summed up the war he was always fighting with himself. Her cheeks warmed, but for once she wasn’t worried about hiding it. He was only dimly aware of her; if she left now he might not even remember that she’d disturbed him in the first place.

“It’s late,” she tried again and walked towards the couch. “Probably later than you think.”

“Yeah?” He kept scribbling and didn’t look up.

“Yeah. Let me drive you home.”

“Can’t. I have to finish this.”

She looked over his mess and recognized the tactical maps for tomorrow’s raid as well USGS surveys, topographical maps of the county, the official BAU profile, notes in both Hotch’s and Rossi’s handwriting, and a considerable amount of additional background info that she was certain the task force hadn’t seen. Almost everything had been marked up to hell. He must have been at it for hours.

“Reid, what are you doing? The plan for tomorrow is set.”

“It’s a terrible plan,” he grumbled as he wrote out something mathematical on his map.

“I know that. We all know that, but we’ve been overruled. There’s nothing left to do now but rest and do what we can when we get there.”

“Not good enough.” His marker tip pierced the map and his lips thinned into a white line as he slowly pulled the pen back and started again with more care. “Davidson believes that sheer numbers will offset his colossal lack of foresight. His maps and overview of the area are two years old - he hasn’t accounted for flora growth or how last year’s twister realigned the landscape. He doesn’t have real time info on the group’s numbers or weapons, and he’s discounted our profile entirely which lea-”

“It’s not our call,” she interrupted, getting a little worried by his fervor. “I’m not jazzed by this at all but I have faith that Morgan and Hotch will have my back in the field, just like you, J.J., and Rossi will have our backs at tactical command.”

“He’s basically using field agents as cannon fodder.” His gaze finally snapped to hers and his look was ferocious. She’d never seen him that furious before and she unconsciously took a half step back. “He’s like a kid playing Risk - he’s already accustomed himself to casualties in this scenario. He’d probably never admit that but it’s obvious given his head-on assault approach through an open area with no serviceable cover.”

“But what can you do, Reid? It’s not like you can relocate the compound to give us a tactical advantage.”

“I can find a better way in. If Davidson is presented with a safer alternative he’ll have to take it. He’ll _have_ to.” He returned to his map and his determined marking.

She sighed. “That’s not your job on this one. Morgan and Hotch can protect themselves. I can handle it too. You need to-”

“Excuse me for wanting that to be _my job_ now,” he bit out as his hands crinkled the corners of the map.

Her chest constricted and then suddenly expanded so quickly that it felt like a bomb detonating under her ribs. She stood perfectly still and told herself to breathe until the ache and the frisson zapping her arms and legs settled. 

_The trick is to keep breathing…_

He wasn’t looking at her; he was staring at his fingers on the ruined corner of the map instead. It was hard to tell, given how shaky she felt in that moment herself, but it looked as if his hands were trembling. They both seemed unable to move beyond the shockwave of his words. She knew that she had to act first - she wasn’t sure why - but it took almost a full minute of awkward silence before she could make her body work again.

She walked until she stood in front of him, the map still spread across his knees. He was staring at his shoes.

“Reid…” she murmured because she didn’t want to spook him. Or herself.

He just kept staring and she watched his chest move. Now he seemed both furious and petrified. _Just keep breathing… in, out, in, out… it’s that easy._

She tapped the toe of his sneaker with her foot. “Hey, Spencer. Look at me.”

But he didn’t. He shook his head like a wet dog and then rearranged the map, folding away the corners that he’d crushed like they didn’t exist. “I… I’m sorry. I’ve got work to do. I’ll figure it out - I just need to try harder.”

His words brought the ache back to her chest but it wasn’t a sudden devastating event this time. It was a warm, clinging pain that you inexplicably try to hold close. It radiated from her center in slow-moving arcs until she could feel it everywhere: her toes, her fingernails, the corners of her eyes. Her knees felt weak so she gave in without thinking about it, moving until her legs caged his bent ones and then gently easing herself into his lap. His eyes snapped to hers then, his mouth hanging open but saying nothing, as if she’d caught him doing something unforgivable. He gripped the map tightly to his chest, but she felt a hand land on her hip when she settled. He probably didn’t even realize that he’d done it, she thought as her face flushed again. Half of what they did now felt like instinct. She never thought it would be like this…

“Hey,” she whispered, not reaching for him, just sitting across him as her spine sagged a little in relief.

“Hey,” he said back watching her intently. 

She smiled at him and waited until his shock eventually melted into a small smile of his own. It made the circles radiate from her chest again but this time the warmth eased her ache. She sank into it gratefully, languorously stretching out. _It’s just me, remember? Just you and me…_ She turned and her hair fell across her face. She felt a bit silly all of a sudden and then smiled even more when she thought that he probably felt silly in this thing most of the time too. But they were in it together and that mattered.

“What’s that smile about?” he asked.

“I dunno. I guess that sometimes… _this_ ,” she gestured between them. “Freaks me out a little - in a good way - and I just need to take a moment to enjoy the surprise of it.”

He swallowed hard and she could tell that he wasn’t sure they were okay. “I-I’m sorry that I freak you out.”

“I told you,” she leaned in close enough that she could feel the heat of him up her chest, and she reached out to gently tug the map out of his hand. His fingers slipped against the paper as she pulled but he focused on her face. She dropped the map behind her and it landed on the floor making a sound like a wave coming ashore. “I enjoy it.”

“Oh.” His free hand landed on her waist and she took a minute to cherish that she finally had his full attention. She reached for him, letting her fingers rest along his jaw. They skimmed across his stubble - something that she wasn’t used to feeling - and his eyes closed as he leaned into it. Sometimes - times like these - his silence spoke to her more powerfully than his words ever could.

“It is your job now, by the way,” she whispered and his eyes flicked open and locked on hers again. “To protect me. I can do it most of the time, but that doesn’t mean that I want you to stop trying.”

“Emily.” It burst out of him like it was too big to contain any longer. It was just her name but it felt as if he’d layered his doubts over it, thread his love and anxiety into its letters. His grip tightened on her waist and she leaned forward to rest her head against his, to tell him that she understood completely. Buttressing him, she listened to his breath rasp in his throat. She stroked her fingertips along his jaw and sank into the feeling of his relief. She always knew that they’d eventually get messy with each other, but she had no idea that she’d love it _this_ much.

“You protect me all the time and you don’t even know it. You’ve been doing it for years,” she murmured and it broke her a little when he tried to say something back but it just came out as a stuttered hitch in his chest. “You kinda showed your hand that time at Cyrus’s compound … it’s been an open secret since then, really. I told you it was fine but I know you never believed me.”

“I didn’t protect you from Cyrus at all.” His voice got low; almost threatening as if he were keeping himself in check, and that did something to her as well. All of those years they’d worked together… Why had she never seen how much he wanted to be her equal? Why had she never guessed how much he wanted her to rely on him?

“Of course you did,” she countered. “Do you think I’d volunteer for a beating just for laughs? I did it so that you could nail that psychopath in a way I couldn’t. Every punch he landed was fine by me because I kept thinking you’d get us out of there. You’d save the followers, the agents waiting at the perimeter, me… you’d save us all. And you did.”

He sighed, breath brushing her neck and making her shiver a little. “If you only knew how moments like that _really felt_ to me. I’ve never acted from strength or assurance in my abilities… it’s always been out of fear. That’s not protection.”

“Spence, experiencing fear, and then overcoming it for someone else’s safety is the essence of bravery. If you think that we all aren’t quietly terrified whenever we pull our guns or walk into a situation that we can’t see our way through, you’re out of your brilliant mind.”

He stared at her and she could see that he was realigning things in his head about this. It seemed so obvious to her, but he always approached things from an unexpected angle; maybe to him, bravado and masculine strength had always been devoid of emotion, like some sort of two dimensional movie cliché. 

“And there’s more to protecting someone than brute force anyway.” Her hands slid around his neck and she moved so that her cheek was pressed firmly against his, her lips at his ear. “You’ve protected me from myself, my cynicism, my sadness… you’ve kept me on course all of these years, and you’ve never let me forget who I am at the core of me. You keep me together, and I’m gonna carry that with me when we do this stupid raid tomorrow. I’m gonna rely on your voice in my head when the fear grips me… I know you won’t let me down.”

He made a strangled noise as his hands grasped her face and dragged her to his lips. Roughness wasn’t really like him, but she understood the desperation that he was trying to swallow down. His mouth pulled hard on hers until she relented and he made a feverish moan as he sank into her, fingers tightening in her hair. God, she loved the way he held her when he felt overcome… 

Something in her, coiled and bound, started to melt. More than that: it became molten, searing her unexpectedly as they tangled themselves up. Her nails dug into his neck and she pressed deeper into his lap feeling him hard against her for the first time. Suddenly her instinctual reaction was that she had to make it through tomorrow - she had to make it back to him. They never talked about their expectations, but the way he was trying to bury himself in her now, and the way she welcomed it said that they’d both moved past something idle and transitory. It should have been frightening to her because it upped the risk of failure so much more, but this was Reid and _she trusted him_. It seemed ridiculous _not_ to open herself to him like this. 

He suddenly broke the kiss, hands on either side of her face pulling her back so that he could look her in the eye.

“I won’t let you down, Emily,” he gasped. “Whatever I can do… I’ll find a way.”

“I know you will, Spence. I’ve never doubted that.”

She leaned in and pressed her lips to his. His hands were everywhere, frantic, and she brushed their mouths, shushing him gently as she tried to soothe him. Kissing his brow, the dark circles below his eyes, the tip of his nose, the corners of his mouth lightly, she waited until he sighed against her and let her do what she wanted with him. His hands kept moving, but now they circled in meticulous patterns that sent the warm ripples radiating across her once again.

“I can’t lose you, Em,” he whispered as she kissed his jaw. “I don’t know if I’m allowed to say that, but it’s the truth.”

“Why wouldn’t you be allowed to say it?”

“Because we’ve never talked about what this is. You can probably guess by now that it’s _a lot_ to me.”

She sat back and swallowed hard. “It’s a lot to me too. I didn’t think it would be this way when we first started, but… it’s become something I’d fight for.”

“Really?” His expression of shock made him look six years old and face to face with a daydream made real.

“Christ, you’re beautiful when you’re clueless,” she chuckled and then silenced him with a lingering kiss. “Yeah, I’d fight for you, Spence.”

His arms wrapped her up and pulled her closer, random papers crinkling under her knees and calves as she adjusted. His lips tugged at hers, skimmed her jaw, and traced down her throat until he raised goosebumps all over her. She leaned her head back when he started sucking her pulse point and it forced her to balance herself by sinking deeply into his lap. He groaned appreciatively when she pressed against his hardness in earnest and suddenly she wasn’t thinking about the raid or their relationship or what the future might hold. The molten warmth was coursing through her - everywhere now - and she made a low, aching sound that caught his attention. She thread her hands in his hair and held him firmly against her throat as she ground into him again.

“Want you.” She just focused on breathing and the feel of him. _And it isn’t even about what I know he can do to me… it’s the things he says…_

“We have rules about this, don’t we?” he mumbled into her neck but his hands tightened around her.

“No one’s here but us. Besides, I think Hotch has guessed at it anyway.”

“There’s _thinking_ that you know, and then there’s walking in on us.” He’d grabbed her wrist and was sucking the skin at the base of her palm, which he was too observant not to know drove her crazy.

“Spence, I’m wound up about tomorrow.” Her voice caught as he scored her wrist lightly with his teeth. “I’m full with… stuff about us, with what we’ve said here means. Don’t play around with me. You need this too.”

He made a frustrated noise and then unceremoniously grabbed her by the waist and flipped her back into the couch. More papers crumpled beneath her and a few pages were sent sailing into the air by the movement, but she had no time to object before he was looming over her kissing her breathless again. Her shirt rode up her chest and suddenly his hands were firm, warm weights across her abdomen, circling and massaging as they crept up under her clothes. She sighed happily - she loved the feel of his hands, it didn’t matter where - but he growled as he bit into her collarbone.

“Don’t have time to do this properly. That upsets me.”

She was about to ask him what he meant when he scooted down her body and went to work on the fly of her pants. His mouth left wet, flushed halos across her belly and hips as he yanked her pants down just far enough to get them out of the way. She almost sat up, almost told him that he was moving too fast, when she felt the burr of his stubble brush her inner thigh and gasped hard enough that she felt it in the back of her throat. His lips soothed the irritation of his beard leaving her heated where he passed; it shouldn’t have felt as electric as it did. 

She felt him rumbling against her and tried to be still long enough to listen. He was reciting hockey statistics. Once he’d done it as a joke because she loved the Capitals and he didn’t understand the game but his memory meant that he _technically_ knew more about it than she did. But she also knew that he spewed anachronistic facts whenever he was trying to control himself.

“What are you doing?” She tried to sit up but one of his hands anchored her hip in place and the other crept up and began stroking the underside of her breast. Even through the fabric of her bra, it sent a tickling shock up her torso and flattened her back into the couch with a whine. Damn him.

His mouth switched to her other thigh and before long she was tingling in symmetry and she laughed a little when she thought that geometry in sex probably turned him on ridiculously. She loved his mind, but she’d keep that to herself for the moment. _Don’t forget to breathe, Prentiss…_

He mumbled something about Ovechkin that she knew he didn’t understand and then his breath ghosted across her core. She squirmed under his grip, aching for actual contact, but he just kept murmuring about playoff plus/minuses without actually touching her. She fought his hands some more but he really had her pinned, so finally she whimpered and clamped a hand to the back of his head to push him where she needed him to be. His neck tensed, fighting her pressure, but then his tongue lightly brushed her edges and after so little contact, the sensation blew out a few of her circuits. 

“Spencer… _please_ …” she moaned, and it felt as if he got tenser when she said it.

Then he was stroking her, lapping in ever-changing patterns and with just enough pressure to provoke but not satisfy. It was driving her to distraction and her nails dug into his skull as she tried in vain to get him closer. One of his hands slid down her body and dipped between her thighs brushing her just below where he was sucking her. She tried to jut her hips towards him but his one hand still held her firmly in place. 

“Come on… come _on_ ,” she muttered angrily and she felt his head rise under her hand, which was the opposite of what she wanted. She looked down at him as he stared at her, mouth obscenely wet and with a knowing curl to his lips.

“Quit grousing,” he chuckled. “You’re not fooling anyone. And you know I could do this for days.”

_Jesus, Spence!_

He stared for a moment longer and then slipped a finger into her without breaking eye contact. She shivered against him and closed her eyes as she dipped into the sensation. It wasn’t nearly enough, but it was real and present and a connection _to him_ , and she wanted it so badly that she’d greedily scoop up whatever he gave. His finger pulsed offering her a little friction to cling to; she breathed anxiously and then opened her eyes, looking at him with what she knew was a strange mix of affection and desperation. It caught him off guard, his smile falling from his face. With his smile gone, his eyes appeared huge, hazel and moss and immense dark pupils swallowing her up.

“I’d go to war for you,” he whispered, his hand working her slowly. “I’d sink ships for you. I’d walk out into that field tomorrow alone and without protection if it kept you out of harm’s way. You know that, right?”

She tightened a little at his words but found that she couldn’t say anything back. His thoughts in that moment lit her with the same excitement as his long-limbed grace did, and the combination seemed to reduce her to a gasping, mute creature. And then he upped the ante when he slipped a second finger into her and curled them together. She grunted and shoved her hips into his hand. He still held her but let her join him in his rhythm, caressing the skin of her hip as they moved together.

“I know you don’t want to be sheltered like that,” he continued, staring with an earnestness that was killing her. “I know that you want me to trust you to look after yourself, but… I just want you to need me. Please need me, Emily.”

She squeezed her eyes shut and concentrated on the crest that was rising in her building momentum with all the things he was saying and doing. He just had no idea at all… She had it so badly for him it scared her. There she was, spread out indecorously under him in her workplace, atop reports from her boss who would most definitely disapprove, and about twelve hours away from a possibly lethal confrontation, and all she cared about was that Reid knew she’d never ask him to risk himself alone for her. They’d do it together because their combined power was so much more than what they could accomplish alone. That’s what years of trust had built. 

“I’ve needed you every day, Spencer. All along,” she whispered and tried to make sense as he pushed her closer, made the waves crash into her harder. “You just think because we weren’t together all that time… that it wasn’t genuine.” 

She was impressed by how coherent that was. He leaned into his hand a little and the pressure pushed her higher. She moaned against her will and he looked on in awe as if he were performing a very interesting experiment. Part of him was clearly doing it on purpose, but she’d get him back for that. Leaning up, she shifted her fingers down to frame her clit. She shuddered at the new sensation but smiled when she saw his eyes riveted to the movement of her fingers.

“Even though I’m about to come like a box of grenades,” her breath hitched as his fingers twisted to her rhythm. “The way I need you isn’t about _this_. You gotta know that by now. We fit, Spence… God, we just… fit…”

A whine escaped him, shocking her with its plaintiveness. Then he suddenly pulled her fingers away and sucked them into his mouth. She was taken aback by it but then he pushed her down into the couch and abandoned her fingers to settle between her legs once more. Her back arched sharply as he sucked on her hard and without warning. Gone was the teasing and the barely-there touches; she felt the full weight and pull of his mouth around her as his fingers curled up inside again and again. He pressed a third finger and then stretched her, his knuckles brushing her sensitive edges, and she cried out. He pulled on her without mercy then, breaking contact only when her hip movements threw him off balance. His one free hand didn’t seem able to hold her in place anymore, and she picked up where he left off by digging her hands into the couch, mixing the sound of ripping paper with her soft cries. 

He was whimpering against her core, in time with her moaning, and the vibrations shattered up her pelvis and rippled over her chest to land like a punch at the base of her throat. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move anymore than she already was, and then he groaned her name against her, long, low and tortured. That was all she could take. His fingers went deep as his lips spelled out everything she was to him in her name, and she tightened so sharply that she thought she might snap in two as her vision whited out behind her eyelids. She was aware of paper tearing and springs complaining and hot breath urging her through the swell, over the aching crest, and into the stomach-flipping slide back down again. The descent felt like she’d fall forever…

The waves seemed to ebb endlessly, but she eventually realized she was whimpering as she breathed - a tiny note on every exhalation. It came back to her, louder and clearer with each ripple. She felt his head resting against her belly, his hair tickling when she breathed. It seemed a very long time before she could tell her body to do anything useful beyond that.

She opened her eyes and peered down at him. “Whooo…”

He laid a hand across her stomach and popped his chin on it, then smiled. “Hey. You’re back.”

“Was I gone long?”

“Not long enough for me to worry, but more than enough time to be impressed by myself.”

She chuckled softly. “C’mere.”

He slid up her body without hesitation and slotted his lips to hers, letting her use him as she pleased. She nipped and sucked until he let her in and then she took her time taking the taste of herself from his tongue. His crushed paperwork rustled gently beneath them as they moved together. She smiled into his mouth and wormed a hand between them as she tried to undo his belt with them pressed together like sardines.

“Come on… your turn…”

“No.” 

He grabbed her wrist and gently pulled it clear of them. She broke away from his mouth, confused; he was clearly still straining against his pants.

“Why?”

“I need the frustration to carry me through tomorrow. It’ll keep me sharp.”

Her expression must have been dubious because he just smirked and kissed the edge of her mouth.

“Trust me, okay?”

“Okay, Doctor Tightpants. Whatever you want.”

“What I want and what I need are different things at the moment.” He sat up and leaned against the back of the couch. Then he held out his hand and helped her sit up as well. “Ask me again tomorrow night and I’m fairly certain you’ll get a different answer.”

There was a big, unspoken clause at the end of his sentence: _if we both survive_. She knew that she could talk until she was blue in the face and he still wouldn’t believe her when she stated that they’d both be fine. It was his nature to worry and it’s not as if he didn’t have cause to do so. She wanted to ease him, to make him feel as confident as he’d just made her feel, but he wasn’t going to let her. She huffed to herself as she wiggled back into her pants - at least he wasn’t on the knife’s edge like he was before. At least she had achieved _that_.

“Time for that ride home, c’mon…” She stood and held out her hand to him but he was already collecting up wads of notes and trying to reorganize them.

“I’m staying ‘til this is done.”

_Oh, for the love of…_

“Really?” She gave him a disbelieving look.

“Really.” He stared back with an expression that told her to get used to obstinacy. 

She let out a long-suffering sigh and he quietly crossed his arms over his chest and dared her to say something about it. She was about to get into it when she realized that he dreaded her fearless independence in the field, but he wasn’t putting up an argument about _that_. He knew what she needed and he gave it to her even though it cost him a lot. Giving _him_ what he needed wouldn’t cost her half so much. Finally, she leaned forward and held his chin firmly.

“Listen. I’m not going to die. I’m not going to get hurt. I may not even get pissed off tomorrow. We’ll be fine and it’s not just a belief I have - it’s a fact, and it’s because you’ve got a plan right here.”

She kissed the worried crease between his eyebrows.

“I trust you, okay?”

“Okay,” he murmured and stroked her wrist as she held him.

She stared for a long time, holding his chin as he held her. Then she figured that if she didn’t say something they’d spend all night like that, or end up screwing on the couch again.

“Don’t go at this all night. Get some sleep, even if it’s just a few hours,” she said gently. “I need you, ya know…”

“You’ll have me. I promise. Tomorrow I’ll be ready, Em.”

Her stomach fluttered. She had absolute faith in his ability to face down any challenge he set for himself. It was just crazy. Who instilled that sort of belief anymore? How had she made him want to make such sweeping promises to her?

She smiled and headed for the door. Then she stopped and turned back to look at him collecting more of his work from the floor.

“I won’t be able to look at that couch again with a straight face,” she said as she flushed.

He looked at her and then quickly away as a blush crept over him as well. He was tamping down hard on a grin when he lifted one shoulder and then let it drop while shuffling his reports.

“Yeah. Me neither.”


	2. Chapter 2

When they all met at the motor pool the next day, Reid was wearing the same clothes but had somehow found time to shave. She rolled her eyes at him while Davidson did an unnecessary recap before they all loaded out. As she moved to her assigned vehicle with Morgan, she stopped as they were about to pass one another.

“You slept here, didn’t you?”

“It was worth it.” His gaze was sharp, energized. “You’ll see.”

“Alright,” she murmured, not sure of what to make of his mood. “I’ll see you after.”

“Yeah, you will.” He smiled and brushed her arm as if by accident, and then he turned and jogged after Hotch launching into a new conversation even before they squeezed into their SUV. No tacit goodbyes, no worried glances…

Somewhere during their drive out to Fairfax County, Reid roped Hotch into his plan and when they got onsite Davidson and Hotch went to the mat about it while the rest of the squad stood around and nervously rechecked their equipment. In the end it was Hotch who prevailed, but when the team got the green light, it was Reid’s voice in their ears giving them instructions and making the final call to commit. Prentiss let everything fall away except his voice - she let it guide her like it was hotwired directly to her brain. She just turned herself into an extension of his will.

His circuitous plan took much, much longer than Davidson’s but it was entirely successful. The team didn’t even get grass stains. Morgan grumbled about not being allowed to tackle anyone. 

After the involved booking procedure for the compound members, she headed for the bullpen only to be unceremoniously dragged into a closet midway. Reid pressed her up against the wall in the darkness and went at her in a completely mindless way that spoke to the fear he’d held off all day. They moved together, hard and frantic, and in her effort to calm him she got caught up in his intensity once again. He groaned deeply with every thrust, every desperate grasp, and she realized that the groans were words getting louder as he got further out of his mind. She pressed her hand over his mouth to keep them from being discovered, but when he started thrusting hard enough to push her up the wall, she felt his phrase being bitten into the hollow of her palm. 

_I love you._

Thirty-seven ‘I love yous’ before he lost the power of speech, and three more afterwards that he knit into her skin with his teeth and breath and fingers that gripped her hard enough to leave bruises. She was gasping from it as he let her go, gently easing her onto her feet again, and she wondered if he felt the same sense of inevitability that she did. They’d just turned a corner and she wished that she had the wherewithal to meet it head on in that moment. Instead they straightened their clothes in the dark and checked each other for their ‘professional’ masks before she made him promise to let her drive him home that evening. And then they walked out into the bullpen to start their paperwork.


	3. Chapter 3

By the time they got to Reid’s apartment it was dark again. Since he hadn’t slept at all the night before, Prentiss wondered exactly how long he’d been awake. He sort of sloughed off his messenger bag, credentials, and gun, and then stood in the middle of his living room as if he’d run out of ideas beyond that. She walked up behind him and worked her thumbs into his shoulders. He sagged backwards into her with a grateful whimper.

“Why don’t you grab a shower? Work the kinks out a bit…”

He nodded and then shuffled towards his bathroom before pulling up as if he’d just thought of something. But she was way ahead of him.

“I’m staying.” She wasn’t asking permission. They were past that now. In the blink of an eye they went from kicking the tires to making a choice and driving off the lot. And _that choice_ was going to lead to a whole lot of other, tougher choices. “Take your time. When you’re finished and ready for bed, I’ll be there too.”

“ ‘Kay.” He looked at her over his shoulder and smiled shyly. Her stomach dipped and bounced producing her own silly smile in return. He turned back and headed for the bathroom, leaving her with her weirdo schoolgirl giddiness. She waited until she could hear the water running before she gave voice to her inner monologue. 

“Sure, Prentiss,” she mumbled and rolled her eyes as she went to make them some tea. “Go ahead and fall for him like an avalanche. ‘Cause there’s no way _that_ could get complicated at all. Hotch is gonna go nuclear when he finds out…”

When he emerged from his shower, she was propped up with pillows, wearing one of his old CalTech t-shirts, and frowning at something she was reading in a copy of _International Journal of Theoretical Physics_. She heard him laugh and looked up to find grinning at her wearing only a towel around his waist.

He shook the wet hair from his eyes and jutted his chin in her direction. “Have you found something problematic?”

“I don’t understand any of it,” she huffed in disappointment, placing it on the nightstand next to her cooling tea. “Maybe I had a lobotomy when I wasn’t looking… I always thought I was smart…”

“You are,” he laughed again as he slipped off the towel and pulled on some pajama pants. She watched him intently sort of wishing that he’d come to bed as is. “Lemme guess - you were reading the article about the implications of boson research, right?”

“Yeah.”

“There are, like, twenty guys on the planet who understand that stuff inside and out, Prentiss.” He slid into bed and immediately settled into her side, head against her shoulder and arm wrapped around her waist pulling her close like it was their nightly habit. “Cut yourself some slack.”

He kissed her neck and sighed. She felt exhaustion pulling him under almost immediately, and she wished that she didn’t want his full attention when he was so tired.

“Feel better?” she hedged.

“Um-hmm.” He nodded against her and then his hands slipped under the t-shirt and up her back pulling her closer with another sigh. “This is great… love this…”

She took a deep breath. “You’ve used that word a lot today.”

He shifted and then looked up at her with worry peeking through his exhaustion. “Did I freak you out again? I thought… after what happened last night…”

“You didn’t freak me out.” She ran her fingers through his damp hair. “Okay… well, maybe a little bit but it was an intense day.”

“Yes,” he swallowed hard. “The anxiety I felt seems silly now…”

“It wasn’t. It was very real. The only reason why it seems trivial now is because _you_ devised a better plan than Davidson’s. We would’ve been screwed without you today, Spencer. You had my back, like I knew you would.”

He closed his eyes and turned his face into her collarbone, like he was trying to hide away inside her. She didn’t know what that meant.

“Do you know what it means to have that kind of confidence in a partner?” She waited for him to look at her.

“I was scared,” he muttered into her skin. “Just like always.” _Does that mean he’s scared right now?_

“You didn’t show it, Spence.” Her fingers tightened in his hair. “That’s all that matters. Of course I know you were scared… I _know_ you. But I believed in everything you said and did today. I believed every word you spoke over that comm. unit.”

He looked up at her then, his eyes a little glassy. She waited for him to say something but his mouth thinned as he kept his thoughts to himself. Perhaps he’d said all that he could already, her mind whispered to her. Her fingers abandoned his hair and drifted along his jaw. It was smooth; he’d shaved before coming to her.

“We’ve changed in the past two days.” Her voice hitched as she spoke. “You can feel that, can’t you?”

He nodded slowly, waiting for her to drop the other half of the conversation on him. _Maybe he thinks you brought him to bed to break up with him?_

“What you said to me after the raid… in the janitorial closet?” She waited a beat so that her intention was clear. She didn’t think she could repeat the words just yet, regardless of how much she wanted to. “That’s how I feel too. With the same scary intensity, Spence. It might take me some time to get the words right, but… it’s there.”

He rolled into her, now hiding his face fully against her neck as his arms cinched around her until it was hard to breathe. She felt his lips move against her spelling out her name with a relieved sigh. Her fingers slid into his hair again holding him close as she smiled into the top of his head.

“You screwed up, big time, dude because I’ve fallen for your brains and your bod and your general amazingness, and then you went and said what you did today. I don’t care if adrenaline and anxiety drove you to do it - I’m hooked now, and I’m gonna hold you to it.”

“Oh, Em,” he mumbled into her neck before he freed a hand and rose up to kiss her, fingertips sinking into her hair. “I meant it. I _really_ did.”

 _Good._ She sank into the kiss with relief. She didn’t even know that she’d been worried about his intentions until she said it aloud. Clearly, he wasn’t the only one who could be weird about this. They took their time, stretching out this new bond with caresses and held breath and soft whispers until she could almost _feel_ them weaving into parts of one another. Prentiss dipped under the surface of this new place they were navigating together and gave freely. Her lips slipped against him, her hands roamed in his hair, over his neck, down his back with a new possessiveness: she had a right to his attention now. She wanted to explore it, to find out what she didn’t already know about him. She wanted to exhaust herself discovering every way she could get close to him, she wanted to touch him until she could trace him from memory. She wanted every damned thing he was willing to give her, and then she wanted to ask for the rest as well. She felt completely out of control because of him but she couldn’t stop herself even though _this level_ of intoxication was foreign and troubling to her.

“Wow,” he pulled away suddenly, breathless and flushed. “ _Really??_ ”

“Really, what?” She was confused.

“All that stuff you just said about what you want from me…”

_Oh, crap…_

“That was out loud?” She felt her face bloom with what must’ve been a mortifying shade of red.

“Oh, yeah,” he nodded, grinned, and then saved her a little with a slow kiss. “Sounds like you’ve got quite a thing for me. I’m not gonna lie - that particular burst of subconscious thought makes me feel about nine feet tall, Emily.”

“Well then, I guess my embarrassment is worth it.”

“Don’t be embarrassed.” He rolled her into the pillows again, kissing her until her fingers left marks from where she gripped him. “It’s amazing to think that you want me like that. We want the same things from each other.”

His delight was written all over him but as he pressed into her body, she recognized where his exhaustion was blurring into his passion.

“Just maybe not right now?” She pushed her hips against his and raised an eyebrow. He looked a little abashed and she hugged him closer. 

“I’m pretty tired.”

“I know.” She whispered against the corner of his mouth. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not, actually. But if you give me a few hours sleep, I promise that I’ll make it up to you. With interest.”

She eased him back down until his head once again rested against her shoulder. She chuckled at his need to promise her things, and how seriously he took them. Her fingers found their way back into his hair, gently pulling at the tangles because she knew it was the quickest way to soothe him.

“It’s fine. Some guy dragged me into a closet at work today and screwed me senseless. Totally out of the blue. I’m good.”

“It wasn’t out of the blue,” he grumbled, but his slurred speech told her that he wouldn’t put up a fight too much longer. “But you are good. You’re so much better than good…”

“Sleep now, Spence,” she hushed. “We can talk later.”

“Gonna do more than talk…” And then he was gone.

She smiled as he went limp against her and she kept stroking his hair, now for her own pleasure. There was something about his lanky self trying to slot into her curves… It made her want to protect him, though he needed protection as infrequently as she did. She realized with a start that protecting him was her job now too. Curling around him into a position that wouldn’t cause pins and needles, she waited until he adjusted in sympathy, one of his hands still flush against her skin under her shirt. Then she reached back and turned out the bedside lamp, sighing with satisfaction as she held him and waited for sleep to take her as well.

 

At four in the morning he roused her and kept his promise. Twice. She made a few more embarrassing statements as she strained into him but at least it was dark so she didn’t have to worry about blushing. Afterwards as he struggled to catch his breath, his chest pressing against hers, he laughed about always keeping his promises to her. She didn’t have any doubts about that. And then she fought her embarrassment again and asked him to make yet another promise to her. It was the best way she could think of to tell him how serious she was about everything.

“A-are you sure?” he stuttered after a moment, causing her to wonder if it was too much too soon.

“Ummm, yeah. I mean, we should discuss _when_ to do it, but I’m sure that I _want_ to.” Then, she hesitated. “Do you think it’s a bad idea?”

“It’s a tricky idea, not a bad one,” he said after a long pause. “Hotch is not gonna be pleased with us.”

“I know. How mad do you think he’ll get?”

“I don’t really care.” His voice sounded like he was smiling. “I’ve been wanting to shout about this since we first started. If you’re ready to go public now, I’m not gonna let Hotch’s scowl or the Bureau’s Code of Conduct get in the way of that. Damn the torpedoes.”

She laughed as he lay himself down and she snuggled into him. They didn’t have to get up for a few more hours, but she wanted to lie there with him until the world ended. _He’s been proud of us since the beginning…_ “My hero.”

“Yeah.” His arm wrapped around her shoulders and pulled her close. “I guess that’s my job now too, huh?”

“Absolutely. You’d better not let me down, Doctor.”

“I won’t, Special Agent.” His voice resonated with pride, with purpose. “I promise.”


End file.
